Qatar: Leaving on a Jet (Airways) Plane

Fun fact: I went to Doha twice.  In one week.  This experience is best described as feeling like I was on a tryout for "The Apprentice" in the Middle East.

First, let's establish the overall working parameters for Doha.  The work week runs Sunday through Thursday and the typical working hours are 7 am - 3 pm.  Upon arriving Saturday night, it was a fast dash to the hotel to unpack, desperately try to unwrinkle the suits, and then set the alarm clock for 5 am on a Sunday.  Who thought this was a good idea?

Doha from the air

By Tuesday lunch, our team was pretty whipped from the missing weekend but in good spirits nevertheless.  That is, we were in good spirits until the project leader returned from the contracting office with bad news.  A signature wouldn't suffice to execute the contract; a company stamp was a pre-req, too.  While the rest of the team muttered about how this all seemed rather silly, I was on the phone with my team in Mumbai rather immediately.  From past experience on international contracts I've learned that when you're told you need a stamp, you need a stamp.  That's all there is to it and there will be no further discussion until you have a stamp to validate any words you wish to share.

We did not have our stamp with us.  Not really something you carry around every day, amiright?  But I knew one existed in the Mumbai office.

Up against the impending deadline of the project leader's Thursday morning departure, the two of us went into no-nonsense taskmaster mode to get a stamp in Doha in under 36 hours.  Here's where things started feeling like they were made for TV because the absurdity level just kept climbing.  FedEx and DHL couldn't get through customs fast enough, airlines don't do private courier services here, no one in Doha would turnaround a custom stamp order in under three days, and no one from Mumbai could fly into Qatar without a visa, which required at least 24 hours of processing time.

After two hours we had exhausted every single channel and the only viable option was to put me on a plane later that evening.  I had the visas, the passport, and most importantly,  incredible hotel staff in Mumbai who facilitated a room in an otherwise booked hotel so I could nap, shower, and eat before getting the stamp and hopping back on a plane 12 hours later.  This project leader is a very seasoned and very savvy traveler but even he was impressed when all it took was one phone call to set up my entire itinerary.  I may have to name my first born child "Trident."

View from plane after take-off.  This is Doha's version of Lake Shore Drive/Marine Drive.

Anyway, back and forth I flew.  Time was just as blurry as the Mumbai sunset below.  I experienced a severe case of Groundhog Day when I flew BOM-DOH-BOM on the same flights, on the same aircraft, eating the same airport lounge food for several meals in a row, but was otherwise unscathed when I touched down in Mumbai for good Friday morning.

Well, not totally unscathed, to be honest.  Being on all these flights struck a nerve and at first it was a pretty bitchy nerve that was later humbled.  Something like only 20% of the people in Qatar are native Qataris.  The rest are migrants and about a third of those migrants are Indian.  Nowhere is this more evident than when queuing to board the plane at either Mumbai or Doha.

Four check-in desks, one giant mess

I was one of fifteen women on a 737 jet  and the whole cabin had the feel of a circus taking place in steerage.  If ever you have a stereotypical thought in your head about what it's like to fly in India, I assure you, this flight matches that perception.  At first it was simply annoying and the late hour paired with my still lagging jet lag did not help matters. My seatmate literally reached over and attempted to use my in-seat television screen because his was broken.  He treated everyone within a five row radius to the music on his cell phone.  He and his buddies enjoyed several complimentary beers and whiskeys each time the bar cart came by (and as a side note, I'm not certain this is the best flight for an open bar cart.)  I offered him my uneaten, wrapped dessert and he took it, shared with his friends, then proudly deposited the empty container in my lap.  The plane honestly smelled, the noise level was comical, and the boarding and deplaning processes forced me to push ahead or risk being trampled.  The tsunami of 18-24 year old men rushed through each step with incredible vigor and my cranky self just wanted order.  It's like what Bill Cosby says of parents: they are not interested in justice - they want QUIET!

Thankfully, each time I come close to getting on that high horse known as American privilege, there is something that knocks me back down again.  That something was observing the non-Qatari section of the emergency department a few days later.  (Yes, the department is separated by both nationality and gender).  When you see swarms of young men hop on a plane in hopes of finding work and providing for their families, and then you see those same men end up in the emergency department because of construction accidents or car crashes from prevalent reckless driving, looking back on the circus plane full determined young faces is tough.  On flight #3, the second Mumbai-Doha leg, I silently scolded myself for being annoyed by my first seatmate as the cabin revelry amped up again.  It was as if I knew how the movie was going to end for some of this batch and it is not the movie ending they are envisioning.   

Ok!   So, enough of all this.  Doha was a tremendous experience and I gotta say that it felt pretty cool to actually have local (!) professional contacts to call upon when caught in a bind.  One of those contacts also came through on a fun request, too.  Stay tuned.

Qatar: Snippets of Life

Let's hear it for Saturday.

I'm running on a full 7 hours of sleep and life looks so much better through non-tired eyes.  It's time for a light post full of pictures and silly anecdotes, yes?  Here's a day in Doha.

FOOD:

Everyone asks about what I eat when I travel.  Doha had its fair share of Middle Eastern and Asian food, for sure.  But it had a ton of continental cuisine, too.  While the food tasted right, the names were sometimes off.

Breakfast at the hotel.  Note the label.

Or the packaging was different but identifiable.

Diet 7 Up and Baked Lays (with a delicious pepper flavor).

The most challenging part of eating in Doha is finding a place to dine where you can eat in mixed company.  Every single day we had lunch, and sometimes breakfast, at the Starbucks near the client site.  Why?  Because we our co-ed team was unable to eat in the same cafeteria within the hospital.  In Doha, Starbucks really is that "third place" that allows people to comfortably meet outside of home and work.  

Dining out of Starbucks' display case every day led to all of us overdosing on spicy Santa Fe chicken wraps, spinach quiches, and ham and cheese croissants.  As proof of our dining frequency, the barista wrote us goodbye messages on our cups.  Someone left an admirer behind in Doha...

BUILDING:

Construction happens at all hours.  Darkness doesn't stop progress but it does stop traffic. 

8 cement trucks blocked the road to my hotel at 9 pm.

Cranes all have floodlights to illuminate construction sites.

But during the day, not a whole lotta action.

 HOSPITALS:
One of my favorite parts of my job is going on site visits and seeing how healthcare is delivered to different populations.  This hospital is unique because of the sheer volume of patients it admits every day; it has the world's busiest emergency department and sees more patients in a day than most US hospitals see in a month.  For the amount of patients (and families) moving through the building, one could naturally think that the place looks like a war zone.  Instead, I'd say it's very Western in its physical finishes and appearance but it is laid out more like an Indian hospital, with more patients in smaller rooms.

 To traipse through the ED every day without riling up security, we had to wear lab coats and carry letters saying our work was official.  It was like having a permission slip to do observations and process flow mapping!  Thank goodness for the extra layer with the coat because the hospital was like a meat locker with its very air conditioned buildings.

This will be my first and last selfie on the blog.

I wish I had a full group photo because we were seriously the poster children for a diverse team, the United Colors of Benetton meets Medicine, if you will.  Our team of seven included one Hispanic man, an Indian woman, an African American woman, a Thai woman, a Turkish man, a straight-up white guy from the Midwest, and yours truly to round out the WASP factor.  Hey, someone needs to make sure the gin isn't left behind.

ENTERTAINMENT:

Speaking of gin and other spirits, Doha is dry in both weather and potent potables.  The only place you can drink is in the hotels, which means that the hotels are entertainment hubs first and places to sleep second.  We were at the W and those I find to always be clubby but its even clubbier when traditional bars don't exist.  And if you have the impression that imbibing was high on our priority list, it really wasn't.  Drinks are horrifically expensive. 

STUFF TO SEE:

I can't comment much here but the last night we were in town we did venture out to the Souq Waqif.  It's an open air market about 10 minutes from downtown and was a delightful diversion.  Much like the hospital being midway between American and Indian versions, so too was the Souq when it comes to American outdoor malls and Crawford Market in Mumbai.  It was busy but not completely packed with people, you can buy traditional Middle Eastern goods but without having someone shove them in your face to tempt you, and it's tidy but not hermetically sealed like most other venues in Doha.

Pet section.

Who knew chicks were so colorful?

Sweets shop.

 

Does anyone have that song from Aladdin, One Jump Ahead, running in your head yet?  No?  Bet you do now.

For any lingering sewing fans, there was a large collection of fabric shops with stunning textiles throughout.  Gorgeous silks and things everywhere.  I stopped to peer inside one of them and saw several women shopping.  This image struck me as a bit of a paradox and forgive me if that sounds culturally insensitive.  So much color and pattern but little to be shown outside the shop's doors.

DRIVING HABITS:

One day we were coming into the hospital campus and traffic was very backed up. A sea of white, silver, and off-white SUVs and luxury sedans  It was moving but only by inches.  Next thing I know, my driver, a native Qatari, starts chuckling at the scene a few cars ahead.  

My driver then explained the following:  The guy driving the huge white SUV (in the foreground, not the background) was apparently so livid with the traffic, and the traffic cop's performance, that he parked his car in the middle of said traffic, got out, and went to yell at the traffic cop (red arrow).  Notice all the space in front of the white SUV.  Yeah, that all opened up in the same time it took our protagonist to get out of the car and go yell at the cop about said gridlock.  And instead of having his yelling help the situation, it just made it worse as the cars behind him tried to maneuver around into the open pavement.  Well played, sir.

Starbucks, SUVs, and frigid hospital hallways.  It's like I never left home.

Qatar: Rhymes with "Butter"

I'm not even sure where to start on this one, other than to say I think Matt may have been right when he claimed, "The Doha trip in the middle of your Mumbai trip is a little aggressive."  

Months and months and months ago, it seems, a new project located in Doha, Qatar, was mentioned and I was asked if I'd want to be a part of that project team.  "Oh, sure!  I dig this international stuff."  And I really do, even when I don't, which is how I'd describe my time in Qatar.  Loved the experience and exposure to a new world but I'm pretty pumped to head back to Mumbai tonight.  These are starkly different places, Mumbai and Doha, and I'll attempt to outline some of those variances in order to depict life from the last week.

I land Saturday night (following the morning meltdown, which was instigated in part by having to get on a plane AGAIN), I go through immigration, and I am greeted by the hotel chauffeur.  The doors outside whisk open and within seconds I start cataloging all the ways in which my new environment is vastly different than the one I just left.  Burning trash smoke is replaced by plumes of cigarette smoke.  We go to the car and it's a BMW 7 series, which is evidently the fanciest of them all.  (I am not fancy enough to know that without someone pointing it out to me.)  This is a far cry from the rickety 1940-issue Fiats in Mumbai that I bop around in.  We also have slight difficulty getting out of the parking garage because all the other cars are ENORMOUS and the spots were not sized as needed.  Later on in the trip I actually took a picture of all the leg room in the car because it was so gratuitous I couldn't help but gawk.

The drive into the city center is short and full of things to see.  A young skyline covered in LEDs catches your eye in no time.   Is this Vegas or Doha?

Architecturally speaking, this place has pulled out every trick in the book.  I guess you can do that when money is no object!

 Note that all my pictures are taken from the backseat of the car.  This is symptomatic of a city where few people walk and the street life subsequently resembles a Sunday morning in Buffalo, NY, at all times.  In other words, Doha looked like a ghost town to my Mumbai-trained eyes.  What else is different?

MUMBAI	DOHA
Loud, manually operated	Quiet, automated
Chaotic traffic and slow going	Orderly traffic but lots of speed
Crumbling buildings	Shiny, tricked-out buildings
Feels like an ant farm	Feels like an enormous corporate office park
Lost City	SIM City
Everyone touches you because there’s no room	No one touches you because that’s the culture
Small black cars make you nimble in traffic	Huge white SUVs make you command the traffic

I haven't blogged real-time about Doha for two reasons.  The first, and most important, was to keep my mom sane by not telling her where I was going. Therefore I couldn't tell the internet about it!  The second was that while I have valued my time here and the opportunity to work in a new foreign hospital, that is about all I have done: work.  This is not because the project leader is a slave driver but rather you don't just happen upon stuff to do or things to see here like you might in other locales.  And, as a woman in a fairly conservative country, being experimental hasn't been a natural inclination.  Therefore, my remaining posts on Doha will be somewhat sparse but hopefully no less intriguing.

I'm off to find dinner before cruising back down to Mumbai, where the city is overcome with cricket mania, just blocks from the hotel!  Yay, people on the streets!